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Am I Blue?

Posted on May 13, 2011

It’s hard to believe that it has been a whole week since I mentioned that this is a Smurf Singalong kind of month. The days continue to Smurf away, bringing the delightfully unexpected at every opportunity. I hate to keep whining about it but, hey, that’s what I do best.

A collection came in with materials to add to our autograph offerings. This couple had Oscar de la Renta, Lauren Bacall, and Carlos Zambrano. I don’t say there’s anything WRONG with that. I do think it’s unusual.

A library came in packed in what I was told were four small boxes and four large boxes. I have mentioned before that U-Haul has a wacky sense of humor when it comes to the word “Small”. (They have added a new size, called “Books”, which is smaller than their “Small”.) The people who packed these books had expanded their capacity by taping the flaps up, which makes room for a lot more books. A note, please, to those of you who are thinking of doing this: Don’t Think of Doing This.

Oh, the four large boxes? They were what is known in the moving trade as “dishpacks”. These are meant for packing stacks of dishes surrounded by ubble wrap or Styrofoam. If these are filled with books, they cannot be lifted by the average human being. A note, please, to those of you who are thinking of doing this: Don’t Even THINK Of Thinking Of Doing This.

Any of you musiclovers out there remember Burl Ives? Do you remember one of his broken-hearted break-up songs called “A Little Bitty Tear’? I don’t have that record. What I DO have is Jack Palance singing it.

Yes, mixed in with the Budapest String Quartet and the Pinetop Smith records I’ve been turning up more gems of America’s recorded history. There are some more of those naughty old party records (Everybody’s Kissing Fanny), and more pre-iTunes rockers (The Dovells, Gary “U.S.” Bonds, Dion and the Belmonts, etc.) What, by the way, is with all you people donating your Pat Boone albums? You really want to hang onto those. Not so much because they’re going to shoot up in value next year, but because I have enough of them for now, thanks.

Speaking of classic albums, we have recently received two photo albums and three scrapbooks, all of which have had everything torn from the pages. What did you have in there, anyway? Or did you feel the pictures would distract from the wonderful vintage photo corners you left behind? We also have a lovely scrapbook filled with clippings and essays about Anne Frank: not only very nicely done, but almost entirely in Spanish.

The Book Fair will feature a nifty stack of cigar boxes, some fairly new, others dating back a few decades. There is one particularly dainty one which a child of the Late Victorian period painted and decorated with pictures cut from magazines. I have one of her boots, as well. Yeah, just one. Gotta be a story there, somewhere. But it goes with that nice, sparkly pair of shoes someone dropped off, too: two inch heels and insoles almost completely separated from the rest of the shoe.

Yeah, May is shaping up as a real Smurf Singalong month. And I’ve been listening really hard, and I do believe they’re singing “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

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